Posts by Russell Brown
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Last night's show is availble here for your viewing pleasure.
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Hmmm. It's getting worse.
Margaret Thatcher has been accused by the Australian foreign minister of having held "unabashedly racist" views after he revealed that the late former British prime minister had warned him of the challenge posed by immigration from Asia.
Bob Carr, who served as premier of New South Wales between 1995 and 2005, said that Thatcher pleaded with him to ensure Sydney did not "end up like Fiji" where citizens of Indian heritage formed a majority until a coup in 1987.
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There's a story on Seven Sharp tonight! I'll post the link when it's up.
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Hard News: Thatcher, in reply to Craig Ranapia,
My family doesn’t remember the Fourth Labour Government with an excess of affection, but I don’t recall anyone expressing a desire to go take a slash on David Lange’s grave either. At least, nobody foolish enough to do so in my earshot.
And yet, probably millions of Britons feel some degree of that this week. That's the point, really. There's a difference between seeing her as a distant ideological hero -- as Chris Finlayson seems to -- and having been there on the rough end.
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Hard News: Thatcher, in reply to Peter Darlington,
And this is the most unforgiving thing to my mind, even if you give her the benefit of the doubt and accept that she was breaking down inefficient industry so that a re-energised market could jump in and provide opportunities for anyone willing to seize the day, it just didn’t happen. The destruction happened but it was never backed up with any kind of market-led creative investment or growth and, for that huge proportion of British people who live north of the Watford Gap, they’ve been left decimated for decades.
See above for my quotes from Thatcher’s key mentor, Keith Joseph. He explicitly proposed leaving the North to rot. He was basically a monster.
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Hard News: Thatcher, in reply to Gabor Toth,
We immediately rushed outside (this was in the City of London) where we witnessed an extraordinary bush-telegraph system which appeared from no where.
My cycle courier friends had pagers. The first to hear the news sent the message “Maggie, Maggie, Maggie! Out! Out! Out!” – to which the response was well yeah, then oh, you mean …
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Hard News: Thatcher, in reply to Angus Robertson,
Maggie Thatcher chose a neo-liberal remedy so is reviled by large numbers (and applauded by others). Francois Hollande now is trying a very different route and is also very unpopular. They are dammed for doing.
The monetarists came in everywhere -- and as Rob notes above, at the very least, they achieved much-needed price stability everywhere they had policy influence. But nowhere else (Chile excepted, where Thatcher's friend Pinochet -- her words -- killed thousands and tortured tens of thousands) did they act in such a divisive, brutal fashion. There is actually a reason that this has carried over successive generations.
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Hard News: Thatcher, in reply to Craig Ranapia,
I don’t think any “gender politics smokescreen” needs to be lowered over the (ex-)Tweep who opined that Margaret Thatcher was a ‘cunt’ who should have been murdered decades ago. A
Can we agree that Hebe did not say, imply or endorse anything of the kind?
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Hard News: Thatcher, in reply to Hebe,
I lived for years under Thatcher and felt and saw the consequences of her policies on me and my closest friends.
Me too. You did rather feel like The Enemy at the time.
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Hard News: Thatcher, in reply to Craig Young,
It fell to her successor, John Major, to preside over the long overdue reduction of the gay male age of consent from twenty one to eighteen, and for the Blair administration to legislate for age of consent equality at sixteeen, a mistake that New Zealand fortunately never made.
Fairness would dictate an acknowledgement that Thatcher did support decriminalisation of homosexuality long before that was a mainstream position in the Conservative Party, as far back as the 60s. But she pretty much trashed that with her full-throated support for Section 28 and more particularly the party conference speech where she mocked the very idea of anyone having a “right” to be gay. I was living in London at the time, and it really was vile.